New Delhi: Body pain does not rise linearly with age and may increase most sharply before age 55, according to a global analysis of more than six million people.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, showed that prevalence of pain ranged from two per cent for facial pain to 40 per cent for back pain.
Researchers, including those from Canada’s McGill University, found that women reported more pain than men across 11 body areas studied, with the largest differences in facial pain, headaches, and stomach or abdominal pain.
Other areas examined included neck and shoulder, foot and ankle, chest, hip and knee. The analysis covered self-reported pain data collected between 1990 and 2025 from 6,125,459 people aged five to over 100 across 118 countries and territories.
“Pain prevalence ranged from roughly two per cent for facial pain to 40 per cent for back pain, was consistently higher in women across all 11 anatomical sites and increased most steeply before age 55 years,” the authors wrote.
Pain is a leading cause of disability worldwide, but there is no standard way to compare self-reported pain across ages and regions, the researchers said.
They noted that existing estimates often focus on diagnosed conditions, which may overlook pain among people with limited access to healthcare.
The findings could help scientists compare pain across populations and improve global pain monitoring and prevention, the team said.
Across all body areas studied, pain prevalence was found to increase most sharply before age 55.
However, headaches and abdominal pain peaked earlier in life, while back, hip and knee pain continued to rise with age.
From age 40, pain overall, joint and back pain increased more rapidly in countries with lower Human Development Index (HDI) values.
By age 80 or older, the prevalence of any bodily pain was around 31 percentage points higher in countries with lower HDI values than in those with higher HDI values, and low back pain was nearly twice as common, the analysis found.
Known risk factors, including smoking, obesity and low income, explained less of the pain burden in lower-development settings, the researchers said, adding that the reasons for higher pain levels are unclear.
The authors suggested that pain prevention may need to start earlier in life and be tailored to different regions. However, most data in the study were collected at a single point in time, so the data show differences between age groups rather than changes in the same people as they aged, they said.
